Modern networking continues to provide an improvement in communication and information access. As an example, in-house data centers, associated with a particular entity of interrelated group of users, could contain a large number of information technology (IT) resources (e.g., cells) that are interconnected through a network (e.g., cell based systems). These networks, or cell based systems, are configured in different ways depending on implementation-specific details such as the hardware used and the physical location of the equipment, and depending on the particular objectives of the network. One common type of network configuration is a local area network (LAN). In actual practice, a typical LAN will include large numbers of computer systems, switches, routers, load balancers, firewalls, and the like.
Many modern networks also include a plurality of redundant subsystems such as servers, disk logical units (LUNs) in a disk array, network switches in the LAN, and the like. In addition, a network may be organized in a virtual LAN (VLAN) including a plurality of the resources within the LAN network. In some cases, the collection of computational devices contained in these VLANs is referred to as farms. The network is referred to as a VLAN because the actual network (e.g., the wiring, cables, etc.) is not reconfigured, instead, the network will be virtually assigned (e.g., with the use of software) the resources specific to the VLAN. Thus, the physical network remains the same, but the actual utilization of the network can be divided into distinct LANs virtually.
For example, a user may request a cell based system (or farm) including a server, a LUN, and two ports on a network switch. The network will then select, configure and deploy the computational devices to establish a cell based system of devices for the user. The user's cell based system would then be active as long as the user requested it and/or utilized it. After the user was finished with the cell based system, the resources would be reabsorbed into the resource pool to await reassignment.
During the set-up of the network, there may be a plurality of selectable redundant cells or systems for the farm. In general, the cell resources are currently allocated based on a hardware or software convenience or by simple ordinal conventions. For example, if the set of resources are numbered or addressed as 0 to n, the normal default is to allocate the resource 0 as the first cell resource. In the case where the resource 0 is not the best resource in the pool of resources, allocating resource 0 will deleteriously effect the operation of the network.
This method of allocating cell resources based on device address is worse than even a random method of allocating resources. For example, since the primary resource allocation is always the same resource, e.g., resource 0, if resource 0 is slow or error prone each primary resource allocation will result in a slow or error prone component in the cell based system. Additionally, when the primary allocated resource is error prone, the opportunity for an unscheduled switchover to a secondary resource in the resource pool is increased. As is well known, unscheduled switchovers often result in loss of data, system downtime, system slowdown, and the like.